BANG!http://baisdenandco.com/BANG
by Baisden + Co.Fri, 23 Jan 2015 21:35:53 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1The Baisden Beeshttp://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=291
http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=291#commentsFri, 23 Jan 2015 21:35:53 +0000http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=291We’ve had a long run with our honey bees that nested in our building, but sadly they had to go. They had been “Africanized” so no one was able to move the nest.

Here is a picture of our brave owner, Larry Baisden, all suited up for battle!

Baisden + Co. is a proud sponsor of Mission 31, providing all of the signage and merchandise.

Fabien Cousteau’s Mission 31 will break new ground in ocean exploration and also coincides with the 50th anniversary of a monumental legacy left by his grandfather Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who is credited with creating the first ocean floor habitats for humans and leading a team of ocean explorers on the first attempt to live and work underwater aboard Conshelf Two. The ambitious 30-day living experiment in the Red Sea succeeded as the first effort in saturation diving, proving that it could be done without suffering any ill effects. Mission 31 will broaden the original Cousteau experiment by one full day, 30 more feet of saturation and will broadcast each moment on multiple channels exposing the world to the adventure, risk and mystique of what lies beneath. This will be the first time a mission of this length has taken place in the Aquarius lab, the only underwater marine habitat and lab in the world, located 9 miles off the coast of Key Largo, Fla., and operated by Florida International University.

Mission 31 Training officially started at FIU’s Aquarius Reef Base and splash down is June 1st! You can tune in live on June 1st at http://mission-31.com/watch-live

]]>http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?feed=rss2&p=2740A New Portfolio Piecehttp://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=261
http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=261#commentsWed, 05 Mar 2014 19:48:16 +0000http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=261We have recently added a new print layout to our online portfolio. You may view it (here). We are especially proud of this design for BelQuette, showcasing the white lettering, which is always a challenge no matter the media.

BelQuette began developing a technology that would help to create a new, niche market within the garment decoration industry. They believed a printer could be engineered that would allow companies to offer custom, single print, graphic apparel without the set up costs or low quality normally associated with other printing methods.

Considering their new technology, we had to create an advertisement that would reflect the treatment of white versus color. This was successfully achieved by creating layers of varied whites behind the text to give the appearance of a “whiter” white.

]]>http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?feed=rss2&p=2610Controversial Adshttp://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=242
http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=242#commentsWed, 08 Jan 2014 19:39:12 +0000http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=242Looking back over the past year, or more recently just this past month, we noticed one ad in particular causing quite a stir. With all of the new holiday commercials trying to sell you this or that, the “Show Your Joe” or lovingly nicknamed “Jingle Balls” commercial from Kmart stood out… to everyone. Some consumers were outraged — calling the ad “offensive” and “filth” — while others found it to be genius and hilarious, deeming it the best ad of the season. The ad got people talking, but it’s hard to say whether it got people buying.

Internet users have spent the equivalent of 26 years watching “Show Your Joe.” It’s driven 1,613 subscriptions to the channel and 93,916 shares to social media. In the past 30 days, “Show Your Joe” has a sentiment score of 64 on Topsy.

Although the brand’s social media team has been quite busy on Twitter since the video launched, sending more than 500 @-reply tweets to the effect of “We regret if you found it to be inappropriate”, “That was not our intent”, “We hope you’ll have a happy holiday”, or “Thanks for your feedback”…

So begs the question – do the numbers justify the risk of alienating consumers?

While it’s unclear yet if the ads led to conversions, it’s safe to say that they had an impact at the top of the marketing funnel, where awareness is the goal. Though the brand didn’t appear until the end of the ad and thus ranked poorly in terms of effectiveness, the controversial nature of the ad put it in the mainstream media, where it was made pretty clear that this was, in fact, a Kmart ad. Just take a look at a few media headlines:

It seems clear that it indeed drove awareness — whether you liked the ad or not, you probably have been thinking more about Kmart in the past five weeks than in the five weeks prior. We’ll have to wait until earnings reports come out to know whether Kmart’s Q4 sales are up and to assess whether “Show Your Joe” drove conversions.

But as the adage goes, there’s no such thing as bad press.

Would you rather have a controversial ad or none at all? Tell us what you think.

*Facts obtained from Mashable.com

]]>http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?feed=rss2&p=2420A Vintage Christmashttp://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=227
http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=227#commentsFri, 13 Dec 2013 16:40:25 +0000http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=227This year, we would like to share with you our ten most favorite Christmas ads of years past. Not necessarily in any order, as we found them all to be just as quirky as the next!

Enjoy and Merry Christmas to you and yours!

]]>http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?feed=rss2&p=2270Fabien Cousteau – Mission 31http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=201
http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=201#commentsTue, 24 Sep 2013 20:49:22 +0000http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=201Baisden + Co. is excited to announce that we will be designing the brand for the clothing and aquatic equipment for Fabien Cousteau’s Mission 31. We are thrilled to be a part of history in the making and can’t wait to show you our final designs!

Mission 31 is a new mission inspired by Fabien’s grandfather, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who only 50 years ago created the first underwater habitat for humans.

Mission 31 will launch this fall to test new science and tech-based experiments with underwater motorcycles, autonomous robots and Kirby Morgan tech diving helmets, spending 31 fully submerged days, 63 feet under seal level. This will expand the 50 year old Cousteau legacy by one full day, 30 more feet of saturation and will broadcast every second on multiple channels exposing to the world what lies beneath.

Each day of the mission can be seen by students worldwide via live Skype video calls into classrooms around the world. The Weather Channel has also partnered with Cousteau to provide ongoing coverage including live reports throughout the mission. Cousteau’s production team Bonnet Rouge and Liquid Pictures will be shooting footage for a longer format IMAX documentary.

Source: Amy Summers, Pitch Publicity

]]>http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?feed=rss2&p=2010The Most Fabulous Visitorshttp://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=195
http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=195#commentsFri, 01 Mar 2013 17:23:22 +0000http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=195We had the most interesting of visitors, I must say. Not that our clientele isn’t just amazing, but these guys really strutted their stuff and dressed to impress!

]]>http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?feed=rss2&p=1950A cautionary tale of not taking into account the equity of an existing logo.http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=188
http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=188#commentsWed, 12 Dec 2012 15:43:15 +0000http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=188 The University of California – one of the most prestigious public universities in the world – redesigned its logo to stay abreast of the times and attract new students.

But the move last week appears to have accomplished just the opposite, and university officials are trying to figure out what to do next.

The venerable university system has been hit with a New Media revolt that includes insults on Twitter, e-mail memes that mock the new look, Facebook spoofs, and calls for the new representation to be tattooed on its creator’s foreheads.

Experts say the episode is a cautionary tale on the dangers of image and marketing changes.
Here’s the background: for 144 years, the 10 campuses have been collectively represented by a traditional-looking, round logo with a “Let There Be Light” motto, a drawing of an open book and a radiating star.

The new logo is essentially rectangular, with a form that approximates the old seal’s open book but which also could pass for a stylized “U.” On top of that is the top half of the letter “C” which could be, depending on whom you ask, a napkin doodle, a bidet, or a banana label.

“This is an attempt to be revolutionary, but it comes off as insensitive,” Reaz Rahman, a UC Irvine senior who started an online petition to get the university to reconsider, told the Los Angeles Times. “To me, it didn’t symbolize an institution of higher learning. It seemed like a marketing scheme to pull in money rather than represent the university.

“New UC logo is an abomination,” wrote one Twitter-user, according to the Times. “Back to the drawing board.” Another tweeted, “Whoever signed off on this UC logo should be forced to have it tattooed on their forehead for life.”

“It is everything our school is against,” wrote Berkeley’s Sheila Lam on the petition, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Might as well have slapped a McDonald’s ‘M’ on top of it. It looks so corporate and it looks cheap.

It is the lack of a clear meaning for the redesigned logo that bothers some communications experts.

“This is kind of a classic branding screw-up where people who are designing it don’t understand the web environment that they are moving into,” says Mark Tatge, a communications professor at DePauw University in Indiana. “What are they trying to say? It doesn’t do any good if people don’t know what it means.”

He says it is legendary in the ad business to list off the number of cars that have failed to succeed in foreign countries because the model name meant something else in the language.

“This is just like ignoring what the symbol might mean in another context,” says Tatge. UC officials counter that they trying to be cutting edge instead of stodgy to be attractive to students.

“We want to convey that this is an iconic place that makes a difference to California and that there is a UC system,” the UC system’s director of marketing communication, Jason Simon, told the L.A. Times.

The university is reminding everyone that the old logo will still appear on diplomas and the official letterhead, although the UC websites do now carry the new logo.

Marketing specialists say that such uprisings are typical when businesses or institutions try to change their image. Officials at the Gap clothing chain and Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice backtracked to using original logos after they made changes that triggered consumer protests.

But several say UC should just stand its ground, and allow some time for the initial shock to wear off.

“Change is hard. In a year, this will die down and the benefit will outweigh the legacy logo,” says Tom Drucker, a Marina Del Rey-based image specialist who focuses on new business models and idea management.

“All tweets are not the same – tweets about the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street obviously are of much greater import than Tweets mocking a new university logo,” says Paul Levinson, a professor of communications at Fordham University in New York and author of “New New Media.”

Objections from students to just about everything a university does is a time-honored part of university life, he notes.

“So, first, University of California officials should take a deep breath,” he says. “Twitter has magnified such objections, true, but that’s also a good thing. Students are entitled to express their opinions.”

Still other analysts feel that the UC episode is not so much a screw-up as just a sign of the times, which once again spotlights the democratization of ideas and expression.

“It’s increasingly par for the course. It’s a great example of the democratization of individual voice bestowed upon people with Internet access,” says Bernard McCoy, associate professor of mass communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “Internet access means more people, regardless of title, economic standing, or experience, have a voice whose reach and audience is potentially global.”

But others say the whole episode is a tempest in a teacup, for the very same reason.
“This tells us nothing about UC or the wisdom of decision making. The only story here is a tired one these days – namely that social media have changed everything,” says Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today magazine.

“Ten years ago, the worst that would have happened with a logo change is that a couple of disgruntled alumni would have written complaint letters. Now, through crowding and viral processes, any trivial event can produce an uproar. In this case – as is often the case with social media – the uproar is as trivial as the event.”

But Professor Levinson thinks the new media environment has created a situation that is different from previous decades, in that the protests are harder to brush off. “What Twitter has done is make it impossible for the university to ignore those opinions,” says Levinson. “In the case of the logo, if the university agrees with the objections, the logo should be changed.”

]]>http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?feed=rss2&p=1850A Day In The Lifehttp://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=164
http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=164#commentsFri, 09 Nov 2012 20:22:18 +0000http://baisdenandco.com/BANG/?p=164We’ll be posting a series of photos and maybe some videos as often as we can (daily?) to showcase what it’s like here at Baisden+Co. Check back often to watch the story unfold. We’ll be making it into a video when it’s done so you can see how it evolves when it’s all put together. We think it will make for an interesting story.